But, ah! there was one that did not appear gay, Nor wave his long branches, now verdant no more !

The bird, as he views him, soars silent away;
His genius is dead, and his honours are o'er.

Once green, like the rest, strong and lovely he grew;

The warbler once dwelt in each well-cover'd

bough;

The breezes saluted his leaves as they flew :

Yes, he has been; but now-alas! what is he now?

The

rays of the morning still shine on the tree, And evening still waters the trunk with her

tears;

The wild flower and wheat-sheaf around it we see, But a winterly ruin it ever appears.

Oh! say, is it age that has alter'd thy form?
(For care and affliction thou never hast known);
Or hast thou been struck by the pitiless storm,
That thou thus seem'st to pine and to wither

alone?

E 2

Thou art silent. The silence, my fancy, improve; Come, pause here awhile-It is what thou

may'st be!

Ah! oft, in the hey-day of pleasure and love, Old friend, I shall sigh as I think upon thee!

XIV.

AUTUMN.

NAY, William, nay, not so! the changeful year
In all its due successions to my sight
Presents but varied beauties, transient all,

All in their season good. These fading leaves,
That with their rich variety of hues

Make yonder forest in the slanting sun

So beautiful, in you awake the thought

Of winter, cold, drear winter,-when these trees Each like a fleshless skeleton shall stretch

Its bare brown boughs; when not a flower shall spread

Its colours to the day, and not a bird
Carol its joyance,—but all nature wear

One sullen aspect, bleak and desolate,
To eye, ear, feeling, comfortless alike.
To me their many-colour'd beauties speak
Of times of merriment and festival,
The year's best holiday: I call to mind
The schoolboy days, when in the falling leaves
I saw with eager hope the pleasant sign
Of coming Christmas; when at morn I took
My wooden kalendar, and counting up
Once more its often-told account, smooth'd off
Each day with more delight the daily notch.
Το you the beauties of the autumnal year
Make mournful emblems, and you think of man
Doom'd to the grave's long winter, spirit-broken,
Bending beneath the burthen of his

years,
Sense-dull'd and fretful, "full of aches and pains,"
Yet clinging still to life. To me they show
The calm decay of nature when the mind
Retains its strength, and in the languid eye
Religion's holy hopes kindle a joy

That make old age look lovely. All to you
Is dark and cheerless; you in this fair world
See some destroying principle abroad,

Air, earth, and water full of living things,

Each on the other preying; and the ways

see

Of man, a strange perplexing labyrinth,
Where crimes and miseries, each producing each,
Render life loathsome, and destroy the hope
That should in death bring comfort. Oh, my friend,
That thy faith were as mine! that thou couldst
Death still producing life, and evil still
Working its own destruction; couldst behold
The strifes and troubles of this troubled world
With the strong eye that sees the promised day
Dawn through this night of tempest! All things
then

Would minister to joy; then should thine heart
Be heal'd and harmonized, and thou wouldst feel
God, always, every where, and all in all.

XV.

THE HOUR OF PRAYER.

BLEST hour! when mortal man retires
To hold communion with his God,
To send to heaven his warm desires,
And listen to his sacred word.

Blest hour! when earthly cares resign
Their empire o'er his anxious breast;
While all around the calm divine

Proclaims the holy day of rest.

Blest hour! when God himself draws nigh, Well pleased his people's voice to hear; To list the penitential sigh,

And wipe away the mourner's tear.

Blest hour! for then where He resorts
Foretastes of future bliss are given,

And mortals find his earthly courts

The House of God-the Gate of Heaven.

Hail! peaceful hour, supremely blest
Amid the hours of earthly care!

The hour that yields the spirit rest,
That sacred hour-the hour of prayer.

And when my hours of prayer are past,
Oh! may I leave these Sabbath days,
To find eternity at last

A never-ending hour of praise.